


Healing

by Racethewind_10



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Baby Fic, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Magic Healing, Pregancy, stupid fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 04:18:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1884861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Racethewind_10/pseuds/Racethewind_10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Standing there in the doorway of the hospital room, Snow White looks at her daughter and the woman she had once wanted to love as a mother and understands that perhaps she never has seen Regina. She never had Emma’s eyes, after all: never had Emma’s ability to gaze unflinching at the truth, at the damage that life left and see past the scars and the walls built to protect old wounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Alludes to marital rape and sexual assault but not graphic. It is also from Snow's POV for some inexplicable reason. Set 6 or 7 years in the future from 3b. Regina and Emma are having a child, Snow ponders her own relationship with her family, especially Regina. 
> 
> I blame Kayryn and her photoshop wizardry for this

Please see the beautiful manip by [Kayryn](http://kayryn.tumblr.com/) [here ](http://racethewind10.tumblr.com/post/90567127761/healing-by-kayryn-accompanying-fic-by-race)

* * *

 

 

Regina has been in labor for twelve hours and everything is going fine. Well, obviously not if you ask Regina, who snarls and snaps and grips Emma’s hand tightly enough to make her blanche.

She’d thrown Snow and Charming out hours ago but they’d stayed nearby with Henry, close enough that Regina’s inventive vocabulary drifting out the door makes Snow grin. It isn’t like she has much room for judgment. She’d given David a black eye during the birth of Emma’s first sister. It’s normal, and when Snow peaks around the corner during the quiet moments between contractions she catches glimpses of Regina’s weary smile as Emma wipes at her forehead and they look so happy.

Regina has been in labor for thirteen hours and everything is going fine.

And then it isn’t.

Snow is leaning back against David, his arms solid and warm around her and their hands clasped over the swell of her own belly (the last one, they promised themselves) and she is just thinking of asking Henry to go get them some coffee. She is just thinking she should probably sit down soon because of _course_ Regina and Emma’s daughter would take her sweet time arriving. She is just smiling at that thought and then there is a sharp gasp, and a cry that isn’t a baby and it isn’t Regina swearing at Emma. Snow is just thinking about nothing in particular and then Emma is calling Regina’s name and she sounds scared, so scared.

* * *

 

The next few moments are a blur Snow can’t quite recall later but suddenly there are raised voices and a nurse is shoving Emma out the door and their daughter’s face is white and her eyes are wide and shocked and so, so green. Henry reaches for her and asks ‘mom?’ Then louder when she doesn’t answer and Snow has never seen Emma quite so frozen. Snow can hear words like ‘prep her’ and ‘emergency C section’ and then they take Regina away and Emma is still frozen, like an animal caught in the headlights of a car not sure which way to jump.

“There was...there was a lot of blood,” is all Emma manages before Henry clings to her fiercely and it’s so painful because he’s taller than both his mothers, but he will always be their little boy and everything feels wrong, like the floor is slanting just a few degrees and she can’t make it level. All she can do is step forward to wrap her arms around her daughter and her grandson. She feels David add his strength and Snow wishes, oh she _wishes_ it were enough.

* * *

 

Waiting is agony.

Waiting is agony because it is the razor’s edge between two possibilities. Between sheer, perfect hope, and utter, aching despair. Between _knowing_ that Regina will be fine and this is nothing but an apparently genetic flair for the dramatic that her offspring is already displaying, and the understanding that life - even a life that burns as bright as Regina’s - is fragile and fleeting; that Queens can bleed and die just like anyone else.

The waiting room is empty except for their family and Snow leans against David’s side, wishing his arms could keep out the sick, roiling terror in her stomach or take away the agony on her daughter’s face. Because if Snow is afraid then Emma is nearly mindless.

Her earlier motionless state shattered like ice in a spring thaw, she now paces, paces, paces. The space is small and Emma is a powder keg waiting to go off, seeming to take up much more space than her slim figure truly inhabits. Only Henry seems to calm her and when he holds out his hand she goes to him and clings to his fingers tightly, as tightly as Regina held to hers earlier, but it only anchors her in one place and Snow can see that inside, Emma is still pacing like a wolf in a cage.

They wait, and wait, and wait. No one moves, and no one speaks. Snow wants to. She wants to go to Emma and tell her daughter that it will be alright, that she won’t lose yet another person who promised to stay with her. But Snow White is not as innocent as she once was and she won’t offer false promises to the woman who will always and forever need the truth more than she needs comfort.

Even when that truth cuts so deep and leaves so many scars.

So they sit and they wait, and the silence looms and the clock moves so, so slowly, its long black hands crawling across the barren white space between numbers. David is the one who answers the texts she gets because Snow can’t bear to say anything in case she is wrong, in case they suddenly are done waiting.

And then a door is opening and a doctor in sweat-stained scrubs is walking toward them but he’s smiling, tired but smiling and Snow hears ‘congratulations’ and ‘they’re both going to be fine’ and David’s arms are so tight around her she can’t breathe. She can’t breathe but it doesn’t matter because Emma is smiling and Henry is pumping his fist in the air and Emma is demanding to see her family.

“Regina is still under sedation but they’re moving her to recovery now, and you can see your daughter if you follow me.”

Time blurs again, fluorescent lighting and ugly hospital tile nothing that she wishes to notice because Emma is suddenly smiling and her eyes are so, so green as a nurse hands her a tiny bundle with a scrunchy pink face and Snow can breathe again. She can breathe again because her daughter’s eyes are glittering with tears of happiness and Henry is stroking one finger ever so carefully across his sister’s forehead, and when he looks at his mom it’s hard to tell who is happier. Or maybe she, herself is, because just then Emma looks up at her and David and that smile, that smile that could power a city.

“Mom, Dad, say hello to Emilia.”

There is careful hugging and crying and more hugging after that, until a nurse comes to tell Emma that they can go see Regina now, though she won’t wake for a few hours. The nurse - Snow knows she should remember the woman's name but she doesn’t and it doesn’t matter right now anyway - offers to take Emilia to the nursery and Regina might be famous for her glares but the White clan can hold their own.

The woman physically takes a step back when presented with the absolute unity of Storybrooke’s most powerful family.  

Emma is not about to be separated from her child in this moment and her son and parents are standing with her.

“I’ll just, show you to your...to Regina’s room,” the nurse gulps and hurries down the hall. The smiles that Emma and Henry exchange are harder than they should be, and Snow wonders if Emma is remembering another time; another child that she let someone take from her arms because she couldn’t trust hers to be strong enough to hold him and keep him safe.

If she is, that child has long since forgiven her, because his smile grows devilish and proud as they watch the nurse all but flee from their presence

The message is clear; nothing will ever separate this family again.

 

* * *

 

Regina is still sedated and when Henry moves immediately to her side to hold her hand it looks wrong to see those elegant fingers motionless and lax.  Snow can’t help the lump in her throat at the sight because Regina looks so still and small and pale, dark circles under her eyes and tendrils of dark hair plastered to her temples and its not right, even though she's just sleeping, to see her silenced like this.

It’s one of any number of moments where Snow White wonders if what she feels toward Regina Mills will ever be anything but complicated.

Then Emma sits ever so carefully on the side of the bed and Henry sits next to her while Emma starts to quietly tell Regina about their daughter. Her voice is soft and low and hoarse with tears and when she looks at Henry and tells him that she never got to see him, (not really, because the memories that Regina gave them matter as a precious gift but Emma's arms never truly cradled Henry like they are holding Emilia and its just one of a thousand other things in their lives that will never be simple but are still _theirs_ and that's what matters)  because she knew if she looked at him she would never give him up, and he would turn out just like her, Henry wraps his arms around his blonde mother and she leans into him and Snow thinks maybe it’s not so complicated. After all what is the past but a road, a journey that has led them here, to this moment?

Past and present, destiny and fate and choice swirl in Snow’s mind; a whirlwind gathering thoughts like leaves and sending them scattering until she pushes them away.  For now, there are no answers. For now, perhaps it is simply enough to be _happy_.

David tugs her arm gently, interrupting her contemplation then, and she follows his lead, easing away from the new family.  They can go home now and eat and clean up. They can tell Ruby and Granny (and thus the entire town) that the Sheriff and the Mayor, the Savior and the Evil Queen, that _Emma_ and _Regina_ have a daughter and she’s going to be just fine.

 

* * *

 

Ruby insists on coming back with them hours later. It’s either late night or early morning and no one has really slept but no one really cares. Ruby’s eyes are bright and she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet and Snow is both happy for her and – in the darker parts of a heart that she has come to accept is not as pure as her name – she is envious. Because Ruby is Emma’s friend and Ruby has never really been hurt by Regina, the curse that took so much from everyone else instead freeing the lanky woman from the part of her nature that she still struggles with. Gratitude for that freedom has led to an improbable but deep friendship between the woman they called Evil and the one they called Wolf. Ruby will be Emilia’s Godmother and it is so, so simple for her.

Snow wishes it were that simple for everyone else.

Then she looks at David beside her, at the smile he can’t hide and the way he walks just a little quicker and wonders if she’s the only one who can’t make it simple.

Ruby is the first to the door of Emma and Regina’s room, the door that is open wide so Snow thinks nothing of it but when Ruby stops short and holds up a hand, for an instant, just an instant, panic grips Snow. But then Ruby is turning toward her and that smile...With a finger to her lips the younger woman motions with her head and Snow and David peak around her. They probably look ridiculous but what greets them…what greets them is worth it.

It’s dark outside and the curtains are drawn anyway, the only light in the room is a lamp in the corner and it is warm and soft, not the harsh sickly neon green of most of the hospital lighting.  Henry is sitting by the bed in a chair he’s pulled as close as possible, barely any space left for his knees because his legs are so long now and he’s holding a sleeping Emilia in his arms. Their grandson is looking at his sister like she’s the most perfect thing he’s ever seen and it’s beautiful, but it isn’t what holds Snow’s attention.

Regina is lying in the hospital bed, its back elevated just slightly so she’s not completely supine. She is still pale and looks far too small, but her eyes are open and she’s looking at Emma. Emma who is looking back at Regina and there is an intensity to her gaze that makes Snow shiver. A part of her feels as if she is intruding, as if she is witnessing something private and intimate. And yet she can’t look away, as drawn to the tension between the two women as a moth to a flame.

“Emma,” Regina says their daughter’s name and there is something like a plea in her voice. It rocks Snow back harder than any punch she’s taken because the woman Snow has known nearly her whole life doesn’t plead for anything.

“I don’t care, Regina. _I_ need to do this,” Emma replies and her voice is strung tighter than Snow’s favorite bow but Regina, weary and pale, is still shaking her head weakly.

“Mom, please.” It’s Henry, whose voice is far too deep for his lanky frame although he’s growing as if to catch up with it, his shoulders filling out to be broad and strong. He rocks his sister gently and Regina reaches out as it to touch them, but pain flickers across her face and she sighs as if in defeat. Dark eyes fall closed and she doesn’t see the nod exchanged between apparent co-conspirators and Henry’s satisfied smile.

Before Snow can wonder what her daughter was talking about, Emma places her hand on Regina’s stomach and closes her eyes.

For a moment nothing happens and then Regina gasps softly and there is light dancing under Emma’s hand…coming _from_ Emma’s hand.

Magic. Emma is using magic. Even now, after all these years, even after seeing Emma and Regina fight too many battles using the power that flows in their blood, some part of Snow wants to be fearful of that slowly growing light. She wants for it to stop but Emma’s face….Emma’s eyes are closed and the sharpness, the intensity is gone from her posture, her whole body softening and calming as if at last she can finally stop moving.

As if at last she can finally come to rest.

“Sleep, Regina. We’ll be here when you wake up,” Emma orders. Her voice is so soft that Snow can barely hear the words but she feels shame steal through her anyway and tugs at David’s hand. This time isn’t for them.  Her husband’s eyes are suspiciously shiny when he nods and they turn and walk down the hall, leaving Ruby to watch over them. Snow wants to laugh at the image, because who else would ask a wolf to guard them, but she can’t find the humor because in so many ways it’s perfect and fitting and she knows that Ruby – like Regina and Emma – will fight till the end to protect what she loves.

“Let’s go grab some coffee,” she says quietly and her husband squeezes her hand in understanding, walking by her side down the hall.

 

* * *

 

When they return a bit later, Ruby is still leaning against the doorway, casting deceptively casual glances up and down the hallway, but she greets Snow and David with a gentle smile and steps away, silent permission to look in on their daughter’s family.

Emma is no longer standing by Regina’s side. Instead she is lying next to her on top of the covers and something about them takes Snow’s breath away all over again. Emma is twisted slightly, pressed close as if she can protect Regina from everything with her own body. One arm is around Regina’s shoulders and the smaller woman’s head turns toward her. Their daughter’s eyes are closed and her forehead presses against a crown of dark hair and her other hand still rests on Regina’s stomach.   Regina is curled toward her as much as she can - which is not very much at all - but she has one hand resting on Emma’s arm and the other on Henry’s knee that he’s got so close to the bed so he can be a part of them. And magic is still spilling from Emma’s fingers. Soft and glittering, it pulses gently, rising and falling with Emma’s breathing.

She has never seen Regina like this, Snow thinks. Never seen this woman who isn’t ready for a fight with the whole world every second she’s awake. This woman who is vulnerable and trusting and curls into Emma’s embrace and lets someone _help_ her.  Standing there in the doorway of the hospital room, Snow White looks at her daughter and the woman she had once wanted to love as a mother and understands that perhaps she never _has_ seen Regina. She never had Emma’s eyes, after all: never had Emma’s ability to gaze unflinching at the truth, at the damage that life left and see past the scars and the walls built to protect old wounds.  

Guilt, old and faded but still thick and bitter, twists in Snow White's chest.

Snow still remembers the night everything changed. The night she realized that her daughter and her former nemesis were more than allies, more than co-parents. It was something so small, just the brush of Regina’s hand along Emma’s arm in a quiet moment when no Wicked Witches were attacking and no curses were looming, but Emma’s smile in return...Emma’s smile was soft and open and so very tender and instead of rolling her eyes or lashing out with some barbed quip, Regina had simply smiled gently back and Snow knew. She just _knew_.  There was more than history in that smile, more than alliance and tolerance or even fondness. There was knowledge and understanding, compassion...there was Love.

She’d been so angry. It was one thing to consider Regina family because of Henry, to say she was forgiven and acknowledge that she had done much to protect Storybrooke and its people but this...This was unforgivable. She’d thrown that in Emma’s face with angry words about Evil and hurt and betrayal and Emma had just...looked at her. Expecting anger or at least denial, it brought Snow up short.  

“Don’t you know who she _is_?” She’d pleaded with her daughter.

And Emma, her brave, headstrong daughter who had suffered so much at other’s hands because of what Regina had done...merely raised one eyebrow and crossed her arms.

“I do. Do you?” Emma had asked simply.

There had been a reply, Snow remembers making one, remembers how her lips shaped syllables from the anger and hurt that all these years apparently hadn’t purged from her heart; words about murder and dark magic and a princess who became a queen who was corrupted by power and how Snow had given her everything; a family and a King...but the exact words haven’t stayed, fading and washing away beneath the vivid clarity of what came next. What came next remains etched as if in stone in her mind, for Snow recalls every detail of Emma’s face, of her daughter’s angry, _angry_   green eyes,  of the way Emma slammed her hand onto the counter so loud it made the cupboards shake and Snow jump back, all her words forgotten.

“She was barely eighteen. He was _fifty_.  And she. Couldn’t. Say. _No_.”  Emma’s blazing eyes and the weight of all that anger and too much knowledge, too much _empathy_   will remain with Snow until the day she dies. Just like she will remember the way Emma’s gaze didn’t leave her face, as if her daughter was searching for something, and then her next words...her next words reached into Snow’s chest as surely as Regina’s fingers ever did, seeking her heart as if to crush it.

“Do you want me to tell you what it’s like? When you say no but they don’t care? When you beg them to stop but they don’t listen? Because I can,” Emma nearly snarled but she also sounded so like Regina, because the snarl wasn’t loud it was soft, low and hard and it cut even deeper because of it.

“But she...”

“Killed people. Hurt people. I _know_. What about all the people _I’ve_ hurt? What about all the people you and Charming” (and their daughter’s use of her father’s title after these years of calling him ‘Dad’ just made the invisible fingers in her chest twist) “killed or ordered to their deaths? How much has _Rumple_ been held responsible for, when he manipulated Cora and Regina like he did?” How much can we lay at Hook’s feet or Milah’s or anyone else in this stupid, fucking cycle of blame and revenge and hurt that just goes on and on and never quits?”

Snow had no answer and Emma - seething, angry Emma with eyes that were steely green and not clear emerald and a voice that shook with emotion even as it was too quiet - just nodded.

“That’s what I thought.” Then she’d straightened and stepped back and she had looked so much older and so much wearier than Snow had ever seen her; her precious little girl who was never supposed to have that many shadows in her eyes.

“I don’t expect you to just forget what’s happened, but you said you forgave her, and that she’s family so you either _mean_ it, or you stay away from us until I can be sure you won’t hurt her, or Henry because of it.”

Her voice was so quiet and so sharp, like the whisper of steel when a blade is drawn and Snow had no reply, so she just watched her daughter walk out her door and then she thought again about what Emma said and how she _knew_ what it was like to not be able to say no...

When David found her later she was still hunched over the toilet, dry-heaving with tears in her eyes.

 

* * *

 

But now...Emma’s face...she has never seen her daughter so calm, so sure so...at peace.

Henry reaches out carefully, so carefully with Emilia in one arm, and he places his hand atop Emma’s and green eyes open to look at her son and the magic flares. It flickers out like a flame or maybe like a heartbeat and it might be Emma or Henry or even Snow who gasps as it pulses through Regina and through the rest of the room, making the lights flicker and the curtains wave. It dances across Snow and Ruby and David’s skin and Snow tenses because violent purple magic is tangled in too many of the threads that make the tapestry of her life, but this magic is white and there is nothing but warmth, like a breeze on a summer’s day tugging at her hair. She could swear she hears children’s laughter and tastes sunshine and for just a moment she wants to laugh, or take David’s hand and dance and this is not the magic she knows, this is nothing like what she’s seen in the past. This is light and beautiful.  

This is True Love.

“That was a little excessive, dear,” the voice is rough and cracks with disuse but dark eyes are blinking open again and they are clear and warm now, the corners crinkling with a smile that holds nothing but love. “But thank you,” Regina finishes softly, turning to look at Henry to let her son know she means it. His own expression is gentle in return and for just a moment Snow wonders at how children grow up and time changes so much; that this little boy – no this young man – who once sought to escape from the clutches of his “Evil” guardian now fights so hard for her.  It’s another kind of magic but one that in its own way is as powerful as what they’d all just witnessed.

Because the paleness is gone from Regina’s skin and the dark circles are gone from under her eyes and that might be due to Emma’s power, but the expression, the sheer _joy_ on Regina’s face as her son carefully passes his sister to her mother is more beautiful and powerful than any curse or any spell in all the realms.

Henry pushes the button to raise the bed just slightly before scooting carefully to sit with his family and Emma is watching them with what Snow knows she will deny are tears in her eyes. Her daughter who spent her whole life searching for a family to love her and keep her has finally found her home and maybe there is something of Fate at work here, for in the end the Savior really did defeat The Evil Queen and the part of Snow White that is still a fairy tale princess acknowledges how fitting and right this is.

But the part of her that is a teacher and a mother and a resident of Storybrooke, Maine, wonders if perhaps it isn’t about good or evil or fate or destiny, but two damaged souls with just enough left of them to love their son. Two people who found shelter and understanding and eventually realized that somewhere along the way, they had become strong enough to love each other.

It’s not a story that will ever appear in the fairy tales of this world but Snow silently admits that this world might be better off if it did.

The bed is too small for the four of them, but it doesn’t matter because Emma is holding Regina against her and Henry has his hand over his mother’s where they are holding his sister and they are smiling at each other so, so brightly. Perhaps this isn’t how fairy tales are supposed to end but Snow has learned a great deal about hanging on to happiness when its within reach, and though those lessons were taught to her – often painfully – by her daughter and the woman she has chosen to build a life with, Snow understands enough to be grateful for them all the same.

“You might as well come in, you guys,” Emma calls from the bed, looking at where Snow and David and Ruby are watching and Snow’s cheeks heat. Ruby doesn’t hesitate for a second, walking straight around to the other side of the bed so she can lean down and kiss the top of Regina’s head, whispering something only the former Queen can hear, but the way her dark eyes glisten and she smiles at Ruby, full and soft, is all anyone else needs to know.

David follows and hugs Emma tightly and then Emilia wakes up and there is cooing and smiling and talking about plans to go home and schedules and its _life_. Perfect in its simplicity and so full of possibility.

Snow White steps forward to greet her granddaughter and silently prays that no matter what happens, everyone in this room gets to live happily ever after.

 

 

Fin

 


End file.
